Entries in the 'Q&A' Category

Evil Is Revealed In The Connection

Dr. Michael LaitmanQuestion: In our dissemination, do we have to evoke the feeling of shame in people by showing them how far they are from mutual guarantee?

Answer: No. We only explain to a person that he can be saved from troubles: Under no circumstances do we tell him that he is bad.

There is nothing bad in a person. We discover the evil in us only if we connect with others and want to care about others.

I have different physical attributes: good and bad, fine and coarse, but the evil isn’t revealed in me until I reach the group, until I begin to actually connect, until I hear about mutual guarantee, and until I see how reluctant I am to have it. This lack of desire—is the evil inclination.

Everything below that is on the beastly level and has nothing to do with the correction. The correction is realized only in the mutuality among people in order to reach adhesion, connection, and mutual guarantee. Only according to this criterion can you be good or bad.

So when we bring the message of mutual guarantee to people, we don’t tell them that they are bad. In what way is a person bad? After all, he was born that way. The Creator has placed him in these conditions.

A person has to discover the evil by himself and become his own judge. No one knows how this works internally when he makes an effort to join the friends in order to form a collective vessel together with them for the revelation of the attribute of bestowal.

It is only with regard to that, that evil is measured. When a person doesn’t want to be incorporated in the general vessel, this is where his evil inclination is hidden. If the vessel corrects itself, it is filled with the attribute of bestowal, meaning the Creator.

The more a person discovers his reluctance, the evil inclination, the more he will feel the need to do something. After all, he feels bad, and this is the salvation. There is nothing better or more important. So through the evil inclination a person reaches a prayer called “raising MAN,” and then he receives the answer and is incorporated in everyone.

So there is nothing bad in anyone. Every one is given his own traits from Above. Until a person enters a group and starts to develop himself on the level of the speaking, he doesn’t exist, and so there is no one we can talk about. A person doesn’t exist on the beastly level.


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From the 4th part of the Daily Kabbalah Lesson 1/13/12, “The Peace”

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Not An Experiment On Lab Mice

Dr. Michael LaitmanQuestion: Why are there serious scientists who believe that the crisis will be over soon, that unemployment will drop, and that the European economy will flourish? Don’t they see how grave the situation is?

Answer: These scientists are clever people, they are experts in their field, but the problem is that science in general speaks about laws that have already been revealed in the world and not about those that will be revealed in the future.

If the new laws that are being revealed now are on a different dimension compared to what we had before, not even one professor can say a thing about them.

We are all egoists and act within our own selfish spheres. We are used to this kind of life. We study it and this is what we understand and explore. Human society exists on this level and this is the level that all the scientists, sociologists, and psychologists work within.

This is one collective dimension we all share and in which we all are. We study it as if we perform empirical lab studies under special conditions, like in a greenhouse: we record different readings and come up with laws.

On the basis of these laws we can come to conclusions that apply to the greenhouse only if it remains in the same conditions without change. In that case, those professors might be right, although this is also a question because there are many scientists who say exactly the opposite.

The point is that the conditions today are changing for the first time in history! In the meantime, scientists don’t understand that things are changing, but I already see it from the spiritual world. But how can we prove this to people? This is why Kabbalsits have kept quiet all this time.

Even a hundred years ago Baal HaSulam began to speak about the crisis, and about the fact that we are one family, about the danger of a nuclear war. But no one wanted to listen; they called him a communist and a mystic.

But today it is already possible to speak, although there are many scientists who won’t see the crisis until it hits them in full force.

But I don’t want it to hit them so. We see that there is no choice and that we have to explain. After all, a scientist studies real life, he studies you and me! And we can’t wait until we begin to starve, until we empty the earth of its natural resources, and until millions of jobless people go out to the streets for this scientist to wake up and say, “Oh, it turns out that there is another trend…” and then to begin to study it.

I don’t want him to study these new laws on me, so that later he will be able to tell about them and get a Nobel Prize at my expense. This is why we have been given permission from Above to reveal this knowledge in advance, before this experiment is preformed on living people.

So I can declare that I disagree with the opinion of the scientist with all due respect and the appreciation I feel for modern science. In fact, according to what he sees, he is right. But there is another process going on here, which is hidden at the moment. Many people will disagree with him because they already see that something strange is happening here. To be on the safe side, it is better to assume that they are right.

After all, this isn’t an experiment on lab mice but on living people! If Spain explodes now, it will immediately spread like wildfire to Italy, Greece, and the rest of Europe.

But this doesn’t mean that scientists don’t understand. They work with numbers and statistical data, they study the world, its processes and results according to what they see: They don’t see anything yet. This is why he is right because as it written: “A judge has only what his eyes can see.”

But there is a sage, who looks a great distance ahead and sees the future states as they are being formed.
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From the 2nd part of the Daily Kabbalah Lesson 1/13/12, The Zohar

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Blame Advertising

Dr. Michael LaitmanQuestion: It is common to take a loan from a bank and then to sit back and think, “How will I pay it back?” But in fact, there is nothing to pay it back with. How do we explain to people before they end up bankrupt or in jail that it’s not worth doing?

Answer: This requires changing not only the individual, but also the entire society, the industry, and our worldview. A lot depends upon the mass media and on the surrounding environment, that is, everything from the closest circle to the general surroundings.

The owners of television programs advertise products that people think they need to buy, people do buy a lot of them, and do so on credit. Today credit is given out left and right because the same bankers that make the loans have an interest in the company, and they end up reclaiming all of people’s possessions in order to repay their debt. This is all it is: a huge machine that is set up to drain a person of his last resources.

If we could break this cycle and through legislation against advertising, clear our mass media of all advertisements, banning all forms of advertising, where would we be? It should be understood that what is being advertised is detrimental. A person himself knows what he wants is not needed; what he doesn’t need, he doesn’t need to know about. After all, it’s better to have a few useful things than a lot of harmful ones.

This is a big problem. I hope that the current crisis will do the job. On the other hand it will simply rid people of the chance to think about that each year they must acquire more to increase the gross domestic product and chase after profits.

Profit should be internal, measured in inner comfort. I won’t feel more comfortable if instead of producing ten kinds of yogurt today, tomorrow I create twenty. This will only exacerbate the problem and no one feels a sense of responsibility.
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From a “Talk About Integral Education” #5, 12/13/11

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Did He Really Leave Me?

Dr. Michael LaitmanQuestion: What does it mean to proceed by the path of bestowal?

Answer: If the goal of creation is to bring pleasure to the creatures and the Creator is a positive force that does good, and only this is the essence of His treatment of us, then why do we need to pray for Him to do good to us?

Everyone screams out to the Creator, “Do something good to us!” But that is ridiculous! Why beg a kind person to perform an act of kindness toward me? He is already doing good; He cannot do anything else. After all, it is written that the Creator is benevolent to the good and the bad alike. He never changes His attitude, as it is written, “I did not change My HaVaYaH” and “the Light exists in absolute rest.”

That goes to show us that it is not worthwhile to ask Him for good. Yet all prayers, all requests, and psalms are composed by Kabbalists, people who exist in spiritual attainment. Then why did they pray, “Help me, save me, do for me”?

These are pleas to form the desire “Help me correct my perception!” That is called “the work of the Creator,” while for the Creator bestowing to us is not work, it’s pleasure.

My work is to ask for the right desire or vessel, and His work is to create this vessel. In other words, it is request for readiness to accept the fulfillment due to which we achieve adhesion rather than a request for a pleasant change.

The word “prayer” is translated as “self-judgment”; it is the creature’s request to be changed. When I ask, “Why have You forsaken me?” has He really left me? Or do I say this only in regard to my own perception within which I feel that He has left me and I realize this myself? In essence, I ask for Him to correct my sensation so that I would feel that He did not leave or become distant from me.

A prayer is a request for correction of our desires, and all this is called work for the Creator rather than fulfillment itself.
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From the 1st part of the Daily Kabbalah Lesson 1/15/12, Writings of Rabash

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Fulfillment From The Feeling Of Love

Dr. Michael LaitmanQuestion: Is the quality of bestowal a vessel or is it fulfillment?

Answer: The quality of bestowal is both a vessel and fulfillment. It is a desire that fulfills me! If I love someone, I am filled with my love toward this person. I don’t even demand love in return; what I feel in regard to him is enough; I feel good from just that.

The feeling of love is fulfillment in itself. By love I mean bestowal. The desire to bestow to the neighbor is called love toward that person.

The extent of the love is measured by how much I am able to rise above my egoism and in spite of it to love another person. If I love him in complete congruence with my egoism, this is called egoistic love. However, if I love against my ego, this is called spiritual love or bestowal. There cannot be real love without resistance from the side of egoism.
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From the 1st part of the Daily Kabbalah Lesson 1/15/12, Writings of Rabash

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Love That Opens The Heart

Dr. Michael LaitmanQuestion: What gives the Creator more pleasure: if we experience His love and return it to Him or if we pass it on?

Answer: In reality, spiritual love is felt not like the material one. Of course, to put it in the earthly language, we give the Creator pleasure by bringing other people closer to Him. However, the words are misleading.

Only after obtaining the properties of Bina will we understand what it all is about. Without the Light of Hassadim, a person cannot talk about love at all because he thinks based on his own desires, but not the desires of the other. Where could love come from?

Love is when the desire of the other opens up like my own, when I want what the other desires; moreover, I desire it even more than I would want for myself. The distance between us only multiplies my suffering, caused by the other person’s lack of satisfaction, and I want to fulfill his desire even more. The distance becomes an amplifier of my empathy.

This attitude appears by itself, automatically: This is how I think, how I perceive desires. And this is the salvation, the miracle. And until then, what love could it be? If I love, I care about the desires of the other above my own rejection and oppositeness. Egoism is revealed to me, and I work in the middle line—that is what love is.

After all, my soul is outside me.
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From the 4th part of the Daily Kabbalah Lesson 1/15/2011, “Introduction to TES”

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Continuing The Path Of Baal HaSulam

Dr. Michael LaitmanQuestion: What does it mean for you to be a disciple of Baal HaSulam?

Answer: I try to be his disciple by constantly scrutinizing his works in order to find something new and aim at the goal more precisely every time. Yesterday’s truth may prove to be completely incorrect in my eyes, up to the point of becoming opposite.

In addition, we realize the words of Baal HaSulam at the corporeal level too, to the extent that we understand his works such as “The Nation,” “The Last Generation,” and others. We also build the work in the group in accordance with Baal HaSulam and Rabash.

Thus we constantly rely on their books and try to ensure that their advice give direction to our lives. This is what’s meant by continuing the path. And it pertains to not me alone, but to each person present here: We all need to be disciples of Baal HaSulam, allowing him to direct us toward adhesion with the Creator.

Consequently, we need to perform a check on our readiness to adjust the direction and realize the path with the help of books, the group, the teacher, and the Light that Reforms, until we reach adhesion. And the most important thing on this path is critical analysis.
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From the 4th part of the Daily Kabbalah Lesson 1/15/2011, “Introduction to TES”

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It Will Be So

Dr. Michael LaitmanQuestion: What makes you so sure that integral upbringing will help people unite correctly? It seems quite unreal.

Answer: I act on the premise of only one thing: Nature will force us towards it. And by our efforts, we want to realize this before great losses occur. We wish people good and want them to reach the goal that nature presents us in a gentle way. We have to come to this goal not under the great pressure of nature, not under the influence of huge ecological problems, world war, and so on, but with few losses or even without suffering. This depends on how much we understand that we have no other choice.

I believe in the victory of this idea (if I may use such big words) because it comes from nature, not from people. But in any case, nature will force us to do it. Thus, we should use our mind to soften the evolutionary forces that push us forward, and then we will reach the goal of nature more smoothly. After all, it is better to make a soft landing on a new integral platform of harmony. I hope it will be so.
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From a “Talk on Integral Education” #4, 12/13/11

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A New Breakthrough

Dr. Michael LaitmanQuestion: We spoke about the fact that we have to return to the level of unity that we attained in the December convention. It has been more than a month, the days go by and personally I feel that I am moving backward, sinking into the daily routine. How can we build an environment that will constantly evoke in me desires that are aimed at unity and the Light as it was in the convention?

Answer: First, do you really want to return to that level? Do you yearn for it? Do you see it all the time as a model before you in order to keep the point of unity? Do you watch the recordings from the convention again and again? Are you sorry that you’ve lost that burning fire?

If we had kept the connection, we would have already attained a much higher level, and would have risen above all the interruptions and the distances that separate us.

I must constantly renew the forgotten feeling, at least for a couple of minutes a day, for example, to see a short clip from the convention. I think it is very important.

Besides, are we working on disseminating our message? Do you take this into consideration in your work? We must join it and distances are no obstacle here. You must connect to the point, to make a plan for mass dissemination in every language.

Besides, in a month we are planning to go to the Arava again and to stay there for about three days. This requires great preparation. Otherwise the results will be the opposite of what we expect. It has to be something that is truly new, like it was the last time. We must make sure that we arrive there worried and anxious to enter a new state not knowing what it is and what fruit it will bear.

I am very concerned about this breakthrough into the unknown. We already know the place, and because of the habit we may repeat the same actions and feelings that we’ve already experienced. The atmosphere itself will remind us of them.

In short, a month isn’t a long time. We must make an effort to prepare ourselves as best as we can. Otherwise, instead of gaining we will lose. I am warning you about that. Start thinking what to do.
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From the 4th part of the Daily Kabbalah Lesson 1/13/12, “The Peace”

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Lacking Just A Little Bit

Dr. Michael LaitmanQuestion: What can I do if a large part of my thoughts is devoted to material matters: how to earn money, my family, and  my position in the eyes of people, and I hardly think about spirituality?

Answer: This is great if you already know that all your thoughts are only about yourself and you do not agree with this, but cannot do anything. At this point you already have the opportunity to discover that there is one additional force besides yourself, the teacher, the group, and the whole world.

There is a hidden force, which creates this egoistic relationship between you and the others, and only it can change this relationship to the correct one.

You lack only a thought, a scrutiny: Is it necessary to change this relationship? Why do you need it? You do not have enough awareness of how much you want to win it and cannot think about anyone else but yourself, and that you cannot stand that you cannot overcome these thoughts. Then, from this inner feeling that has reached a huge tension, a cry is born, to which the reforming Light responds.
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From the 1st part of the Daily Kabbalah Lesson 1/13/12, Shamati #153

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